Cost of a Day in Life?

Pop Quiz: How much money do you spend in a day? (and I mean everything, rent, tax, insurance, car payment, food, cable... basically your salary - savings / 365) I bet you don't know. and I bet it would take you more than a couple minutes to answer accurately. now, better yet, how much cheaper could you be? define your standard of living and the decrease your soul would except. Now try and do this keeping in mind a couple other people and zero income. and you'll find 2 things (if you're me): first, that half of the budgeting becomes way easier (the income part), and second, that no one can keep a budget because they are incredibly fake, incredibly contrived, and its almost impossible to express everything. I feel a little guilty saying this as my father is an accountant and has been trying to beat money sense into me since I was very young (I think I had my first job at 9). but its true, they don't work because they are absolutely fake. its also part of the reason retroactive trend based budgeting is so huge (mint.com, hellowallet.com), you don't have to guess about who you are, you don't have to accidentally change your lifestyle by trying to track it, and you can see places you're being money silly. Now despite all of these fantastic reasons not to even try, I have been building a spreadsheet that is trying to guess at how much a day in the life of a very poor yours truly will cost. so far the results are surprising - in terms of what you spend money on and never think of (postage, travel, and gifts for me), and a little reassuring, in that I can probably live for about $10,000 a year if I'm careful. The debilitating part: coming up with 20 grand. The exhilarating part: only needing 20 grand. Thanks to Rob for his help coming up with all the shit I was missing!